Archive for the 'Daniel Hackett' Tag Under 'USC' Category

USC will be able to bring in more than 25 new players thanks to it latest commitment.

Caleb Wilson, a tight end/quarterback at Serra High of Gardena, plans to attend USC, according to multiple reports and his own Twitter account. But Wilson won’t count against the Trojans’ scholarship total.

How’s that? Well, Wilson is the son of USC defensive line coach Chris Wilson. Because his father is a university employee, Caleb won’t have to pay tuition for most of his college tenure. (The free-tuition provision kicks in after two years of employment; Chris Wilson began working at USC in January 2014.)

So Caleb Wilson can come to USC as a preferred walk-on. Former Trojans basketball player Daniel Hackett took advantage of that employee benefit when his dad was the team’s strength and conditioning coach.

Wilson had been committed to Old Dominion as a quarterback. He will play tight end at USC, a position where the Trojans need to build depth. Wilson is about 6-foot-5 and 200-plus pounds. He was ranked as a two- or three-star prospect as a quarterback.

Let's not sugarcoat it: This USC men's basketball team is bad. It lacks talent, depth, shooting ability, entertainment value and general know-how. It's the "Rob" of the Pac-12 Conference.

(For those unaware of "Rob," it's an incredibly awful-looking new sitcom on CBS. How this stuff gets ever makes it on air, I'll never know. But I digress.)

Let's also not jump the gun on Trojans coach Kevin O'Neill. I know many of you believe he deserves to be fired for putting together such a putrid product. But unless something unforeseen happens off the court, O'Neill will be back next season. Athletic Director Pat Haden told me as much earlier this month, and Haden reiterated his position to Jill Painter of the L.A. Daily News last week.

O'Neill deserves that opportunity.

Think about the situation O'Neill inherited: He became USC's coach on June 20, 2009, after Tim Floyd resigned and all but one member of the '09 recruiting class defected. (Making matters worse, most of them signed with conference rival Arizona). In addition, USC lost three non-seniors to the pros that spring: DeMar DeRozan, Taj Gibson and Daniel Hackett.

The postgame notes from USC's 68-66 loss to Cal on Saturday night included this tidbit: The game was the 50th for Kevin O'Neill as Trojans coach.

Which of course prompted one of my colleagues to wonder: Will he see another 50?

No matter how disappointing this basketball season has been so far -- and it's definitely disappointing -- any talk of ousting O'Neill is extremely premature. Given the circumstances he entered into, he deserves, at the very least, two more seasons to prove himself.

ESPN's "Outside the Lines" recently profiled USC athletic director Mike Garrett -- well, at least as much as the show could without actually speaking with Garrett, who declined to be interviewed.

The juiciest revelation: that Garrett had "harsh words" for a crying Daniel Hackett after he missed a free throw at the end of the Memphis game at Madison Square Garden in December 2007, leading to then-coach Tim Floyd asking Garrett to stop coming into the locker room.

"(Garrett) kind of went off in front of the whole team," ex-Trojans forward Keith Wilkinson told OTL.

Less than two years later, Floyd resigned, citing his frayed relationship with Garrett.

Former USC guard Daniel Hackett called Tim Floyd's resignation "a great gesture," asserting that Floyd is falling on the sword to protect the program.

Hackett defended Floyd at every turn despite the two being at odds over Hackett's decision to turn pro after his junior year.

You can read what Hackett had to say - as well as a full recap of the events that led to Floyd's downfall - by clicking here.

Of course, that wasn't all Hackett had to say.

I asked him whether he believed Louis Johnson's accusations about Floyd in the Yahoo! Sports story that turned out to be the tipping point in his demise. Said Hackett: "I'm definitely not going to believe what that man said. It's just a shame. It's unbelievable that it had to go down like that. I know what kind of man Coach Floyd is."